Put the kettle on and settle in, friends. This quotation round-up is going to be a lengthy one. 😅 I have many lovely and thought-provoking passages I’ve been saving up to share from this month’s reads! Let’s dive right in…
Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge
“If I can succeed in inserting a little knowledge into your vacant heads you may yet bring honor upon the name of Linnet. An old and honored name and a charming bird. Linnets and nightingales sang in the enchanted groves that clothed the lower slopes of Mount Hymettus, that sacred mountain above Athens that in the summer season is as purple with heather and as musical with bees as our own Lion Tor above Linden Wood. Where’s Athens?”
The question shot out at Robert as though from a pistol and Uncle Ambrose’s terrible bright glance seemed to reach right down into his head like a hook. It groped about there and came up with something.
“In Greece, sir,” gasped Robert.
One unexpected consequence of reading this book is that I shall now forever - and finally - read the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” correctly. Previously when I read about “evening full of the linnet’s wings,” I assumed Yeats was talking about insects, since just a few lines earlier he’s speaking of crickets signing and a “bee-loud glade.” 😆 Birds make much more sense, but “madam queens and noble bees” in fact play a significant and charming role in Elizabeth Goudge’s tale. 🐝
I was very excited to finish my read of this book in September after misplacing my copy of it in August, but I have to admit the second half didn’t quite live up to the first half - surprisingly, because Elizabeth Goudge is one of my favorite authors. However, I’m still glad to own it and glad I read it. As usual, Goudge does such a wonderful job bringing different characters to life. I especially loved the interactions between the siblings…
[Nan] and Robert ran down the stairs shoulder to shoulder, very companionably, for they got on well together. Though he was two years younger, the number of ideas that he had made him seem older than his age. Nan did not have many ideas of her own because it was she who had to deal with what happened after Robert had had his.
Later we see this sisterly prudence in action…
She began to think that Robert’s latest idea had not been one of his best, but she did not say so because when an idea has hardened into consequences it is too late to change it for another. That is why ideas should never be put into practice the moment you have them. They should be chewed like cud for twenty-four hours.
Nan is such a charming name, but my favorite name in the book belongs to the cat Andromache. I almost want to go out and adopt a little cat sibling for Cymbeline just so I can call her Andromache!
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s fiery wheels
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
As I’ve already shared some quotations from Romeo and Juliet in an earlier short #Shakestember blog post, I won’t include too many more here, but I do always have to marvel at the many picturesque descriptions of the dawn which Shakespeare includes in his plays, like this one from Hamlet:
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
It makes me wonder if Shakespeare woke up every morning just to watch the sun rise and get some fresh inspiration! Speaking of inspiring sunrise and sunset descriptions…
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The sun was sinking to rest, like a king, Laura thought, drawing the gorgeous curtains of his great bed around him. But Mary was not pleased by such fancies. So Laura said, “The sun is sinking, Mary, into white downy clouds that spread to the edge of the world. All the tops of them are crimson, and streaming down from the top of the sky are great gorgeous curtains of rose and gold with pearly edges. They are a great canopy over the whole prairie. The little streaks of sky between them are clear, pure green.”
I started my reread of the Little House on the Prairie series back in January, and revisiting this childhood favorite has definitely been a highlight of my reading year! From the quotation above, it’s easy to guess that Laura Ingalls Wilder certainly owed some of her writing skills to her sister Mary. The way she described the surroundings to her sister must have helped her remember the scenes later when she wrote the books - and it probably also helped her to learn to cut out at least a little bit of any unnecessarily flowery language. 😂
It’s hard to pick a favorite out of this series, because part of its beauty is in the sequence and all the different adventures and hardships the family experiences, but Little Town on the Prairie would be a strong contender for my top pick. You still get some of the wide open prairie, but you also get the fun of town and school fellows. Laura is growing up, and I love how we see her maturity in her work ethic, in her unselfishness, and just in little things she notices, like the scene where she realizes that her mother hates sewing as much as she does. Speaking of sewing, there’s a beautiful and detailed description of Mary’s traveling outfit, and reading it, you can just feel all the hours of patient and loving work that went into that actual garment!
I could go on and on about things I loved in this book, but I think I will save my thoughts and try to film/write a wrap-up of the whole series once I finish my reread. I’m really looking forward to These Happy Golden Years!
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that’s going to be human and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.
There’s such a great mix of wisdom and whimsy in Narnia! From the nobility of Aslan to the coziness of the Beavers, I loved reading and discussing this for our book club this month. I have been continuing my journey through the series and just finished The Magician’s Nephew, which I also absolutely loved. I waffled on whether to read the series in chronological or publication order - I think I’m going to continue on in chronological order. I can’t wait to spend some more time in Narnia!
Cats’ X.Y.Z. by Beverley Nichols
There I was, standing on the lawn, not only looking but listening, to one of the most magical echoes in the whole symphony of nature, the sound of falling leaves. They were falling from the branches of the old walnut tree that stretched its gnarled branches over the outbuildings, and the morning was so hushed that one heard each leaf distinctly as it fell, sighing and fluttering through the misty air. It would be pleasant, I thought, if we could all leave the world in so graceful a fashion; at one moment high up in the branches of an old tree, and then - a sudden feeling of fatigue, a swift farewell and a gentle parting, knowing, as we left the parent branch, that even now, though a new life awaited us, it would be a life of growth and service.
And then, the silence was broken by a cough behind me. I looked round and saw ‘Four,’ the eldest of my three cats. He was sitting on the yellow leaves of the acacia, and he looked very black, very cold, and very pathetic.
After discovering Cats’ A.B.C. earlier this year, I had to pick up the end of Beverley Nichols’ delightful, alphabetical feline musings. Since it starts with “A for Autumn,” it feels perfect for this time of year, and it is definitely getting me in a great writing mood for working on the next installment in The Book of Cymbeline series.
Christy by Catherine Marshall
I did not realize it then, but from that moment this became my view, a source of peace and strength, a stabilizing energy that entered into me to quiet the mind and satisfy the heart.
The character Christy’s love of the mountains in this book was so inspiring and relatable - I feel the same exact way about the views out my farmhouse windows. 😊
Kate Howe highly recommended this book, and I’m so glad she did! It’s about a young woman who sets out to become a school teacher in the wilds of Tennessee. This would be the perfect book to read if you’re visiting the Smokey Mountains - the descriptions of the landscape and the people who carved out a life there are wonderful. The reflections on faith and the ways the characters grapple with their faith were also beautiful to read about…
I remembered my conversation with Dr. MacNeill that afternoon in my schoolroom. He said that he believed in some “starter-force” but that he could not credit a loving God with concern for individuals. But the “starter-force” behind the magnificence displayed before my wondering eyes had an authority behind it that could be no abstraction, for it had immediacy - known and felt. Now I knew how to answer the doctor’s question. Call this what you might - “starter-force,” “God,” “Father” - it was personal alright. It thrust deep into me. It pulled. And it insisted that life was precious - all of life - Fairlight and I, and every bird and every squirrel and every tree reaching through its forest cover for the light. It cried that all effort was worthwhile; that doubt and fear and discouragement were a desecration of beauty, that hope was always right. It insisted that small achievement was not enough; that hopes and dreams must be large enough to stand up beside those soaring summits and not once bow their heads in shame.
As I mentioned in the video, the book wasn’t quite a home run, but it came really close!
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
God gave the day, God gave the strength. And the day and the strength were consecrated to labor, and that labor was its own reward. For whom the labor? What would be its fruits? These were idle considerations - beside the point.
I’m halfway through Anna Karenina (and already fed up with Anna herself, lol), but I love Levin and Kitty and Tolstoy’s beautiful writing. There are so many evocative scenes and interesting observations. I’m excited to finish up this classic next month!
Magnificat / St. John Chrysostom
The present world is a theater, the conditions of men are roles: wealth and poverty, ruler and ruled, and so forth. When this day is cast aside, and that terrible night comes, or rather day, night indeed for sinners, but day for the righteous, when the play is ended, when the masks are removed, when each person is judged with his works – not each person with his wealth, not each person with his office, not each person with his authority, not each person with his power, but each person with his works, whether he is a ruler or a king, a woman or a man, when He requires an account of our life and our good deeds, not the weight of our reputation, not the slightness of our poverty, not the tyranny of our disdain….when the masks are removed, then the truly rich and the truly poor are revealed.
As promised in the video wrap-up, here is the beautiful passage from St. John Chrysostom that I came across in Magnificat this month. Since I’ve just been reading Shakespeare, it put me in mind of the famous “All the world’s a stage…” - but St. John takes the metaphor so much deeper. Magnificat, as usual, is adding to my TBR - I now need to get and read the book that line came from, On Wealth and Poverty.
A new reading month has already begun, and I need to get my #Victober reading picks in order! I really enjoyed discovering Charlotte Mary Yonge last year, so I’m thinking I may try another title by her, The Pillars of the House. Then again, I’d also like to go back and finish The Newcomes by William Thackery. We’ll have to see what makes it into my October reading wrap-up!
What I Read in September 2023